Dreamlands of Lost Carcosa - Casual Stroll Through the Woods

Second session of "Dreamlands of Lost Carcosa" just went down.
Had some return players, as well as a new one!

Characters
• Don Contarini, the duellist from Venise
• Aris, the greek pot-maker
• Pavel, the soviet kosmonaut (from a soviet flash gordon retrofuture)
• And Agent 711, 60s british spy and gentleman extraordinaire

What Happened
• Game opened cold with the party realizing they were missing a sioux and mongol biker. Also the french château turned into a gothic castle somehow. Shortly after, a hole opened into the ground and spat out Agent 711, who is so smooth an operator that he somehow integrated the party nearly instantly AND managed to not look surprised or off-put by being thrown into another world out of the blue.

• Heading west towards a smoke column, the party went on a two days trek through the woods.

• The first day, they went through a strange glowing yellow mist and quietly avoided some massive, unseen beast clawing at trees and roaring like a lion.

• The second day, they found a "garden of bones", with a pile of skulls and bones at the center. This enraged the venetian man, who kicked sculptures and broke the grotesque bone assemblages. A star-faced mole-person ran off to the mound (it was spying on the party from the bushes), so they prowled through the bone garden and started to poke at the mound.

• A cat of saturn (monstrous feline with protruding bones and insect chitin) jumped out, and tried to maul Don Contarini (1 hit), before Aris cut its stinger off. Then, the Don managed to run it through with his sword. It pissed off the mole-people though, who tried to swarm the party. Our heroes ran.

• Narrowly escaping the horde, they forded the narrow part of a river, and saw that the mole-men retreated and didn't pursue further. As they grew closer to the smoke, the party decided to push on through the night to scout the area. Turned out there was a village there!

• The village was very near to the crash site. Sticks with goat-men heads (fresh) were noticed. A great bonfire with corpses of goat men and parts of the black ship raged in the village's center. The party hesitated in their approach, but were eventually noticed by the locals.

• These Carcosans had ash-grey skin and wild flowing hair of various colours, as well as strange scripture tattoos over their bodies and dressed in simple robes with flowers and vines embroidered in them. Offering rubies, Don Contarini got the locals to lower their spears and escort them into the village. There, the leader invited them to the elder's hut.

• In the hut, the party drank a strange beverage containing a mind worm which allowed communication with the carcosans. The elder explained how other people from distant stars had come before, as well as He Who Shall Not Be Named. She also explained that cats are usually not trustworthy, but that they hold secret ways to cross between worlds, or through the woods. She told the party that the Lady of the Castle, who was corrupted by the King, holds the key to get out of the woods, but that bartering with her is dangerous, and how her castle's halls are ever twisting and changing.

• Wrapping things up, the group was offered safe shelter in the village in exchange for the rubies they hold, as these can be traded with the Lady's servants to get back captives enslaved by the satyrs. The party also agreed to deal with a nearby camp of mad loggers who turned feral due to noxious fumes.

 

Some Notes
Nearly no rolls! A save or two maybe. One fight, with the cat, was resolved pretty fast and in a way that didn't break the flow of the game which is nice. Thinking of experimenting with hit-less even, and going all descriptive. Not sure though, might feel tactically limited, though I'm not sure it actually would.